MANIFESTO in English

May 2017

Amsterdam‘s typical personality is imperiled. Its ‘Lady and the Tramp’ quality is waning fast as the city threatens to become the preserve of the happy few with the tramps booted out. A city previously characterized by its liberal and contrarian attitude is transformed into a place devoted where money, commerce and conformism rule. Parts of the city are bought up by a class of new rich going for expensive flats, exclusive shops and walled gardens. Other parts of the city fall prey to the tourism industry, festival organizers and business events. A culture based on consumptive tourism and thriving newcomers is fast becoming the norm, and those who don’t longer fit in it are showed the door.

So: save Amsterdam and make our city:

Fair and Socially Committed

With affordable housing for all: build new houses, stop selling out council flats; take housing off the hands of real estate speculators. Housing is a right, not a commodity.

Grant rights to temporary tenants and people in precarious forms of housing.

No more displacement of of middle and low income tenants.

Allow squatting as a legitimate way to combat deliberate vacancy.

Give homeless people adequate care.

Re-open community centers and neighborhood clubs which have been closed due to budget cuts.

Re-establish proper working conditions, with secure employment and adequate pay.

Treat social benefit recipients as citizens not mendicants.

Go for transparent governance and direct democracy.

Embrace technology but don’t do it at the detriment of the people.

Green and livable

Switch to alternative, sustainable energy sources. Close the Hemweg coal-fired power plant and make the Amsterdam Harbour ‘fossil-free’.

Allot more space for slow traffic of cycles and pedestrians. Discourage car and truck traffic.

Maintain an accessible and fine-layered public transport network. Don’t turn the new North-South metro line into an excuse to downsize the existing tram and bus network.

Show respect to the inhabitants of the city. Limit mass tourism and don’t allow the building of any new hotel.

Turn AirBnB apartments into normal dwellings again.

Don’t commercialize the public domain. No more branding of streets and neighborhoods.

Keep streets, squares, parks and canals safe and clean.

Hospitable and Diverse

Hospitality, security and equal rights for refugees – full- time shelter for the ‘We Are Here’ group .

Ensure majority-minority solidarity.

Practice and celebrate sexual and gender diversity in the open.

Allow for more presence of arts and (sub)culture. Stop closures of alternative cultural spaces.

Make universities places of critical, independent thought and research again.

Protect existing and create new free cultural spaces.

Promote genuine makers initiatives and true artisanal activities.

Support small independent business people. Make their activities less burdensome administratively and ensure diversity on High Streets.